


Zarnkhalatva

by AllegoriesInMediasRes



Series: Baahubali fics [9]
Category: Baahubali (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Incomplete, fic bit from an AU floating around in my head, tons of unanswered questions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-17
Updated: 2018-05-17
Packaged: 2019-05-08 03:38:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14685654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AllegoriesInMediasRes/pseuds/AllegoriesInMediasRes
Summary: “I want to be with my mother!”So has been the constant plea for the last hour from the young prisoner.





	Zarnkhalatva

“I want to be with my mother!”

So has been the constant plea for the last hour from the young prisoner -- for all that he is a child and he is currently residing in a luxurious guest chamber, he is still a prisoner and there are guards posted at the door. Guards who are steadfastly doing their best to ignore the sniffles and the bangs from inside the chamber.

“I am Mahendra Baahubali, a son of Mahishmati, and you will obey me! Take me to my mother!”

“Foolish boy,” one guard finally snarls. “Do you know what’s become of your mother?”

“Take her to me!”

“Boy,” the guard chuckles, “if you have any sense at all, you’ll swallow your protests and appreciate the fine apartments you are afforded.”

“I don’t care,” is the predictable reply. “If you don’t take me to wherever she is, I’ll keep asking and asking until you go deaf!”

“I’ll have knocked you out long before we reach that point.”

There is a brief lull, in which the guard fancifully hopes the young menace within the chamber has finally learned the value of silence. Sadly --

“You don’t want to listen to me anymore,” the boy says, the childish petulance gone and an uncanny note in his voice, “and I want to be with my mother. So take me to her, and you’ll be rid of me.”

The guard considers it. “Once you’re with her, you’re not coming back,” he finally grunts.

“I know that.”

Rain lashes over the courtyard, pooling in crevices and whipping about branches and dousing all the torches. The guard can barely see a few strides ahead, but it’s an easy thing to pick out the path to the town square and trail it in the space of minutes. Another set of guards is posted at the center, where a grill is built into the ground that turns out to be --

“Your mother’s cage, my prince,” the first guard says with a leer. The boy says nothing, only walks right up past the other set of guards and presses his face into the bars. “Mother, it’s me, Mahendra.”

The person within the cage, who has remained crumpled, motionless, even throughout this afternoon filled with rain and taunts and jabs, jerks violently up to a sitting position. She gets to her feet, chains clanking, and does not even wince when her head hits the bars, drawing jeers from the sentries. Her harsh breathing is clearly audible through the heavy rain.

The boy turns back to the guards. “Put me in with her,” he says, steady-eyed and steady-voiced, and the guards’ jeers fade into nothingness.

The key is found, and with a loud creaking, the cage is unlocked. The door swings open.

“Should we chain him as well?” Uncertainty is thick in the air.

The original guard glances at the boy’s tiny, tiny wrists. “Nothing small enough for him,” he finally grunts. “Any cuffs would slip right off.”

The boy shuffles forward to the entrance, and then with the easy grace of a monkey, swings himself down to join his mother. The door slams shut behind him.

“Mahendra,” the woman breathes. The boy says nothing, but buries himself in her sodden rags, twisting her pallu around him like a scarf. The woman stands stiff, frozen, motionless, before she finally wriggles her bound wrists over his head, and returns the embrace.

Mother and son curl up in the driest corner of the cage, the woman covering the boy as best she can with her body. The boy shifts in her locked embrace so that his back is to her, and he may massage her chafed wrists. She buries her nose in his drenched curls while his tiny fingers wriggle underneath her shackles and rub the excoriated skin there. 

**Author's Note:**

> Title means “chained together” in Sanskrit. 
> 
> So I’m sure after reading this, you’ve got like 392038 questions, none of which I have the answer to. All I can say is that this scene fell into my head and I had to write it. Now to write the 50K or so words leading up to it…


End file.
